Chapter Text
High above the wispy clouds, amidst the gloomy snow-filled shroud, standing alone on an icy stage, beneath it every lowly sage.
Albedo stood on the edge of a cliff, enchanted by what lay under his feet. Below him was a vast abyss, the bottom of which was obscured by the deep, frosty fog which surrounded him. Despite the fog blocking his vision, Albedo could sense that at the bottom slept Durin, whose blood was venomous enough to corrode both the Sun and the Moon eight times over.
Snow lightly fell from the sky as chilling winds stabbed into his body like sharp knives. If he looked closely, Albedo would find small red lines tracing through the ground like veins of blood. Standing at the edge of an endless plain, with every frosty blade of grass reflecting moonlight, Albedo seemed to be in a trance.
No matter how much he tried to avert his gaze, he remained transfixed on the slumbering dragon, their souls resonating with an ever increasing harmony. The piercing cold and the rest of the world slowly melted away as Albedo felt his ability to control his own body begin to fade into nothingness.
Every single cell in his body yearned to move forwards, to cast himself head forth into the abyss that lay in front of him. Tremors ran throughout Albedo’s body as he struggled to maintain control amidst the dissolution of his mental faculties. His heart was beating faster than he thought possible, and his soul felt like it was drowning in a dark sea.
After what felt like hours, Albedo could feel his senses returning to him. By this point, the light snowfall had transformed into a terrible snowstorm. Still panting and shaking from what had just happened, he turned around to leave, to disappear into the endless sea of frost behind him. Albedo had not even taken two steps before he felt a tremor in his soul. Without even turning around, he knew that there were two purple eyes locked onto him.
Gold. When some people thought about it, they would dream of mountains of Mora; their wild fantasies of riches and opulence incited by either a history of destitution, or by yearning of an unfulfilled spirit. Even many normally aloof alchemists would spend a lifetime using their vast talents in search of it.
When others would think about gold, they would imagine the finest jewellery in the land, dreaming about adorning their bodies with signs of their status, pursuing social recognition through vain flaunting.
When the wise look down upon this inane masquerade, they ought to laugh at the foolishness of it all.
But who exactly are they laughing at?
Gold holds special meaning to Albedo. As an alchemist, it is the metal that he has spends the most time studying, and as a son, it is the title of his only kin, his mother and his master.
Yet, whenever Albedo thought about gold, someone else came to mind.
Albedo lay awake on his bed, his eyes closed in a sleepless dream, and his mind as disorderly as his surroundings. Books and manuscripts were haphazardly strewn around his room without rhyme or reason. On Albedo’s desk alone, there were about a dozen texts including an unfinished manuscript on Vivified Mercury, a treatise by Sumerian scholar about optics, and a martial arts novel that Xingqiu had gifted him. On the center of his desk lay a half-finished report regarding an alchemical problem which had stumped him for quite some time next to a few manuscripts on Ruby Ice, a substance which had been troubling him lately. Hidden away in his closet was a series of a few dozen paintings, all depicting the same figure.
Warm sunlight gently peered through the gap between the curtains, softly landing on Albedo’s face without rousing him from his slumber. Sleep was a sore spot for Albedo, as he often had trouble falling asleep. Despite constantly being tired, whenever he attempted to sleep a golden torrent of thoughts would rush through his soul, calling him away from the realm of slumber.
Outside of his lodgings, the day had already started. Vendors were peddling their goods and most of the other Knights were well into their duties. On a normal day, Albedo, too would be hard at work, likely conducting an experiment or researching a problem which was giving him trouble.
But none of that mattered to Albedo at the moment.
It had been more than an hour since Albedo woke up, and unless something forced him to leave his bed, he would likely spend another hour in a chaotic trance. Despite the sluggishness of his body, his mind was flooded with disordered thoughts.
Throughout the storm raging in Albedo’s soul, gold raindrops cascaded down without end, the monsoon of thoughts intensifying at a terrifying rate. Each droplet contained a world, and engraved into the essence of each world as thoroughly as the laws of nature were carved into Teyvat, was the image of a certain star who fell from the night sky, his hair glowing in the sunlight and flowing in the wind like threads of gold woven into a knot over his heart.
In the past, Albedo often wondered where this obsession originated.
Does it stem from my desire to research the unknown? If that’s the case, then why does it feel so different compared to all my other bouts of curiosity? If it was only about the unknown, then why do I catch himself drawing him at every idle moment? If it was merely about curiosity, then why has his smile imprinted itself so thoroughly in my heart?
After discarding countless hypotheses and pondering countless theories, Albedo felt like he understood no more than when he had just discovered his feelings. Amidst the sea of possible explanations, there only stood one which remained after further scrutiny. One which he had suspected at the deepest reaches of his heart all this time, which perfectly explained his troubles and neatly solved some other mysteries about himself. The only problem left was not that he was afraid to accept it, but that it likely entailed a life of solitude, of suppressing the storm which raged in his heart, of forever wondering about what could have been.
Albedo could remember every detail about the day when he he realized, or rather the day that his head finally arrived at the conclusion which was blindingly obvious to his heart.
It was a cold night on Dragonspine. Albedo had just finished a weeks-long experiment aimed at synthesizing a sample of Dvalin’s blood from the skeleton lying in Wyrmrest Valley. The final step in the procedure took over thirty hours and Albedo had to maintain focus for the whole time. After safely storing away the finished product, Albedo promptly went to his bed and fell asleep the moment he lay down.
Unbeknownst to him, that would be the last time he would be able to fall asleep easily for a very long time.
Albedo slept through the whole day, not waking until after midnight. When he woke up, the source of his troubles became as clear as day. Although he would go on to carefully scrutinize his solution, there was no doubt in his mind about its truth at that moment.
Albedo walked outside of his camp and took a look at Wyrmrest Valley.
“Master, did you expect this result when you made me?”